


Hellhole

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: Give me a lie, give me three.But know this old man, you won't get the best of me.In which Prompto's stay in Zegnatus isn't a pleasant affair.





	Hellhole

**Author's Note:**

> **Big bold reminder that Final Fantasy XV and all of its content is property of Square Enix.** I just like to play in the sandpit they've created for the fans.

Ardyn certainly knows how to give Prompto's mind a workout, he'll give the sad fucker that.  There's always a new Noctis waiting around the corner for him when he wriggles free of his restraints, there to turn him in circles until he's hopelessly lost and confused and it  _almost_ works, except...

"You do realise Noctis usually gets a wedgie when he runs, right?  He'd be yanking his boxers out his ass cheeks by now."

... except he knows Noctis too well and Ardyn doesn't at all and  _oh_ but it makes Ardyn mad.  Hissing, spitting, daemon-tar mad, lashing out and breaking bones and Odin's balls he seems so  _unassuming_ but hits like a behemoth.

Prompto knows he doesn't stand a chance, not against that kind of raw strength or the malevolent mind behind it.  If Ardyn doesn't put him six feet under then he'll likely go crazy and have a brain as splintered as a freshly cracked egg but, and it's the one thing Ardyn can't snuff out, he  _hopes._ Every time he closes his eyes against the pain and the ice-cold itch of Ardyn's warped magic healing him up for another round, he  _hopes._ Either Noctis will stage a rescue, or he'll die.  He just has to hold out until then, and find every fault in the Nocts - Nocti? - Ardyn sends his way with false promises of escape.

Too tall, too short,  _Noct wouldn't be caught dead wearing those, Grandpa._ The cologne's off, the leather's too worn, his voice breaks in the wrong place when he says Prompto's name, the eyes are  _too_ blue.

But sometimes... sometimes Ardyn gets really fucking close to fooling him, so much so he quakes and mouths off to hide the spike in fear.  He takes the beatings  _gladly,_ squares off against MTs with his bare hands and grins despite the injuries, the teeth they knock loose, the bones  _he_ breaks taking them down.  Better to rattle his brain around and get it back in the game before Ardyn comes at him again and smells the near victory.  Before he lets his daemon side loose and has Prompto screaming - not for mercy, not yet.   _Noctis will come,_ he knows it.

* * *

Copper and ozone and leather.  Harsh, panting breaths by his ear and a solid weight pitched into his chest.  It rouses him from that safe space  _between_ and he might cry out or whimper, can't really tell  _what_ comes out the ragged ruin of his mouth.

Eyes of ember and starlight, so furious and beautiful and set in a cast of worry, all frowny-face and grime-streaked cheeks and if only he had the strength to laugh.

 _"What has he done to you?"_ Noct breathes, and it is, it's Noct.  The off-kilter stance where he favours his bad leg, the precise bite of teeth on lip, the whip-quick flutter of fingers over his hair and his bruises and his wounds, the manacles holding him still, and that glorious kiss of sunlight over barren land as the dregs of magic left in his soul come alive so close to their source.  To him.

_"Noctis."_

"It's me, I promise, let's get you out of this hellhole."

Pride.  Reckless, wild abandon when he's cut down and hitched up, leaning heavily into Noct's side and he grins up at the camera, gives it an unbroken middle finger.

_Eat shit and die mad, fucker.  I survived._

With the  _real_ Noctis at his side.


End file.
